Carbon Upfront!

So many baby boomers suffer from Dorian Gray syndrome. I have previously discussed the virtues of downsizing as you get older, and talk often about sufficiency, asking how much we really need. But it is not popular; I've often complained that boomers aren’t budging- they want to age in place, with all their rooms and their stuff. Others want to downsize a bit, but often into retirement communities where they can live on one level and walk into a big garage.

I spent the weekend re-reading Jane Jacobs’ Cities and the Wealth of Nations, thinking that her concept of import replacement was suddenly relevant in Canada, where American tariffs and Canada’s counter-tariffs might make imports significantly more expensive. Since she is most famous for her views on cities and planning, I thought it might have lessons for the design of our buildings and cities in the face of the current economic situation.

Rockets were smaller in 1946, and we didn’t worry about emissions. Compared to cars and airplanes, the environmental impact of rocket launches has been considered minor. That’s because there aren't that many of them, but that’s about to change. Lost among all the noise coming out of the White House lately are last week’s announcements, “President Donald J. Trump Launches the Golden Age of Space Transportation”.

There already is a prefab factory in Muskoka. Why build another? I spend my summer in a cabin on a small lake in a corner of Muskoka, Ontario, not the part famous for being a summer playground for rich Americans or the Heated Rivalry guys. But I follow the local news and was intrigued by a proposal by the Chairman of the District of Muskoka to invest $17 million in a factory to build prefabricated housing near the Muskoka airport.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney complained in his speech on Saturday that deals with the USA are “written in pencil.” We learned this when Howard Lutnick blackmailed Canada over the Gordie Howe Bridge between Windsor and Detroit, and I suspect Lutnick is behind the last-minute changes that led Canada to walk away from the Smoot-Hawley tariff negotiations. So now, as Mark Carney notes, we are in an economic war.

Last year, everyone was talking about Abundance, based on the thesis that we can have “the future we want” with affordable housing, clean air and water, supersonic weekends in London, all powered by geothermal, nuclear and renewables, with AI and other technologies lifting billions out of poverty, if we just let builders build and inventors invent. In the meantime, we can keep burning fossil fuels because soon we will be able to suck the carbon dioxide out of the air.

Me pumping my legs 581 times this morning. I have written often about falls and how they kill more people than guns or cars, but nobody wants to talk about it. I usually write about how it is a problem of dangerous design: This isn’t just a problem of people being old and frail; it’s a design problem. It’s an interior design problem, a building design problem, an urban design problem, a maintenance problem, and an attitude problem of blaming the victim.

Memorial to a cyclist killed on Bloor Street W before there were separated bike lanes. We will see more of this./ Photo Lloyd Alter I was not surprised when the Ontario Court of Appeal overturned Justice Paul Schabas’ finding that Doug Ford’s removal of bike lanes was unconstitutional under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Eve Harrington accepting award on behalf of the Province of Alberta’s ad agency Get ready for next year’s CLIO advertising awards, or their Canadian equivalent, the EFFIES. They are going to go to whoever put together Alberta’s campaign selling gas-fired data centres- oh, sorry, just as methane was rebranded as “natural gas”, data centres are now “digital refineries.” I am fascinated by marketing. I start every morning with my daily Seth Godin. I have written often about how to market Passivhaus.

I was recently bemused by a LinkedIn Post written by architect and development strategist Sam Mcheileh, looking at SANAA’s New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City. He writes: “it looks straightforward: a stack of offset boxes. But shifting those volumes complicates everything - from the floor plans to the smallest details. It complicates the structure too.” He concludes: “Simplicity is rarely the absence of complexity.